LONDON, UK (January 1, 2014) – Four Hindu and Sikh organization of the UK have begun an online petition against using the term ‘Asians’ to describe those convicted for sexual grooming of white girls. The petition is aimed for a debate in the UK parliament.
Ashish Joshi of Sikh Media Monitoring Group, UK, informed Times of India on Tuesday that besides Sikh Monitoring Group, the Network of Sikh Organizations, Hindu Council, UK and Sikh Awareness Society had launched the campaign against the use of term ‘Asians.’ He informed that the use of the word ‘Asian’ was unfair to Sikhs, Hindus and other communities who were of Asian origin and have not been involved in the emerging pattern of convictions for sexual grooming.
The reported convictions of men for sexual grooming of white British girls, almost always involved men of Pakistani origin, he added.
There have been sexual targeting of White, Sikh and Hindu girls by Pakistani grooming gangs in the UK and there was resentment among Hindus and Sikhs over media reports describing the perpetrators of these crime as ‘Asians’ despite the fact that neither any Sikh nor Hindu have been involved in these sexual grooming cases. Earlier, they had condemned the comments of Labour Rochdale MP Stephen Danczuk that certain ‘Asian’ communities are in denial after a spate of sexual grooming cases in Rochdale.
He said there was reluctance by both government and media to discuss the disproportionate representation of Muslims in such cases. Besides, the victims were almost always non-Muslim girls. “The Hindu and Sikh communities have been complaining about targeting of their girls by Muslim men for decades,” he said adding that in August 2013, Muslim men were amongst those convicted for the sex grooming of a Sikh girl in Leicester. He said the communities which themselves fall victim of this emerging pattern of criminality, should not be besmirched by the vague terminology ‘Asian.’
He said that in order to help find a solution to the problem they need to be clear on the identity of those involved. “We will not be able to do this if we mask the identity, based on misguided views of protecting a vulnerable community of perpetrators and not looking at the vulnerable community of victims,” he said.
Petition is available at this link: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/we-the-undersigned-demand-that-politicians